Entries for September 2008

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unleashed a PR blitzkrieg this week to urge about 85 percent of Americans to get vaccinated against the flu. The agency expanded its recommendations to include yearly shots for all children ages 6 months to 18 years and also calls for pregnant women to be vaccinated, along with healthcare workers and those over 50. A spate of news stories with headlines like "Flu shots: What's your excuse?" and "Time for flu shots, now for 6-month-olds too" tells me that journalists swallowed the CDC's recommendations hook, line, and sinker. Where, though, is the worry about the fact that flu shots usually contain thimerosal, a mercury-containing compound that was banished from other childhood vaccines several years ago?

I'm particularly concerned about giving flu shots to pregnant women because no one has really identified the threshold dose for which thimerosal can become problematic for tiny fetuses. Certainly, the amount of mercury in a single flu shot is very small and most likely harmless. "It's equivalent to the amount in a small can of tuna fish," says Tom Clarkson, a mercury researcher at the University of Rochester. "Still, we know that high levels of mercury can affect cell division in the developing brain of a fetus, and no one can say with absolute certainty that there's no risk."

Most of us have some issues with our mothers, even if we consider them our closest friends. Despite all they do for us, moms can be jealous, self-centered, competitive, critical, controlling. In other words, human. Yet some mothers take those behaviors to an extreme, exhibiting a full-blown psychological disorder called narcissism, which often leaves their children feeling inadequate and fearing abandonment—even as adults. Of course, there are also narcissistic dads. (Some might argue that Lindsay Lohan's father is exhibiting these tendencies in his very public condemnation of the actress's girlfriend.)

Self-obsessed moms are the focus of a book out this week called Will I Ever Be Good Enough? by psychologist Karyl McBride. "I think mothers really serve as role models for their daughters," she tells me. "They look to their mothers for how to be in the world as a friend, lover, or mother themselves." The author, herself the daughter of a narcissistic mother, says she'd like to keep women from repeating the same mistakes their mothers made.

In July, I wrote about a possible new federal rule designed to protect healthcare providers from being denied employment or fired if they, say, refused to administer emergency contraception or certain forms of birth control because of their religious or moral beliefs. Dozens of health organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, voiced their fierce opposition, saying that such a rule would deny women access to full reproductive care. In a poll that I included in this blog, 92 percent of you said you were against the regulation, while 8 percent of you said you favored it. As it turns out, this draft rule was formally proposed at the end of last month and could become a reality on September 25 after the period ends for submitting comments.

The proposed rule states: "Any entity, including a state or local government, that carries out any part of any health service program funded in whole or in part under a program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services...shall not require any individual to perform or assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity funded by the Department if such service or activity would be contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions." You can read the full text here.

After hearing about the surprise $800,000 birthday bash that Jennifer Lopez gave her husband last Sunday—just hours after she finished a triathlon—I thought, that's nice, but my husband did her one better. As a surprise birthday present for me (also on Sunday), David took me skydiving, something that's been on my "bucket list" way before I'd even heard of the term. The reason my hubby trumps J-Lo is that he not only made all the arrangements but, at the last minute, decided to join me in the jump, even though he's seriously afraid of heights.

David (who's allowing me to reveal his phobia) always gets anxious crossing the Maryland Bay Bridge and won't look down from the terrace of a high-rise. Now, here he was about to jump out of a plane at 13,500 feet. "Don't be nervous," I told him as we signed the waivers stating that "you can be seriously injured or even killed as a result of your participation." He told me not to let him back out, that he wanted to conquer his fear of heights by exposing himself to a, well, truly terrifying experience: a freefall for about 40 seconds at 100-plus miles per hour followed by a four-minute parachute ride. (We did minimize the risks by doing a tandem dive, each of us strapped to an instructor the whole way down.

I'm frequently told that I look younger than my 38 years. (You be the judge; check out my nonairbrushed photo above.) While I'm always pleased by the compliment, I wonder whether I'm really young for my years. Am I doing all I can to slow the aging process? A couple of revelations this week offer some hints that, no, I can do more. Rigorous lifestyle changes, like eating very little fat and sugar, actually increased the levels of telomerase (a protein that helps slows cell aging) in a group of prostate cancer patients, University of California researchers report. And a Harvard University study finds that a healthful lifestyle can boost women's longevity by reducing the risk of dying from heart disease and cancer.

Sounds good to me, but what should I do?

1. Go vegan. OK, that's a little extreme for me, but the guys in the prostate cancer study were probably very motivated. They were told to eat only 10 percent of their calories from fat and very little sugar and processed foods, which means they pretty much ate fruits, vegetables, legumes, soy, and whole grains. (They were allowed to take fish oil supplements to replace the fatty tuna steaks they were missing out on.) Click here for the full details. I think I'll stick with my mostly vegetarian lifestyle with fish a few times a week and chicken once or twice a week.

Any pregnant woman who has read What to Expect When You're Expecting is familiar with the fish conundrum: Should she eat more fish to give Baby all those brain-boosting omega-3 fats? Or limit her intake to save Baby from brain-toxic mercury in fish from polluted oceans? The pendulum has certainly swung both ways on this, but evidence is growing that for optimizing brain development, the benefits of fish outweigh the risks. Take a new Harvard University study published in this month's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It found that expectant moms who ate the most fish—more than three servings a week—were 30 percent more likely to have children with higher developmental scores at 18 months of age compared with those whose mothers ate less than a serving a week. But the women from Denmark weren't choosing tuna, shark, or king mackerel (known for their high mercury content) but instead ate low-mercury varieties common in their region: cod, salmon, herring, and smaller species of mackerel.

Inherited genes certainly play a major role in determining a baby's intelligence, but moms-to-be can also take certain steps, experts say, to help ensure that these genes are programmed correctly in the womb and during the first few months of life. (You may, though, want to skip those boost-your-baby's-IQ videos since this recent study found they don't work.) Here's what actually could make a difference:

"Woman, 59, Gives Birth to Healthy Triplets," one of today's headlines announced. That's great for the babies, I thought, but how healthy is the mother? I won't speculate on the state of her psychological health when she decided to travel from France, where she lives, to a Vietnamese clinic willing to set aside the age limit of 45 imposed in France for in vitro fertilization. (The United States has no such law, but fertility clinics are loath to provide services to those nearing menopause.) But she certainly faced increased health risks, like diabetes and heart disease, carrying multiple fetuses at such an advanced age—to say nothing of the back and joint pain.

While this is certainly an extreme case, childbirth among the 40-something set has tripled since the 1980s, according to a December report issued by the Public Policy Institute of California. Heck, three 40-plus friends of mine told me last week that they were expecting their fourth or fifth child. "Should I be worried that our local pharmacy is dispensing placebos instead of the pill?" I joked to my husband. All kidding aside, some women may assume (wrongly) that they don't need to worry about birth control at this age: About 40 percent of pregnancies after 40 are unintended, according to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, and 7 percent of women ages 40 to 44 reported that they recently had sex without contraception.

With all the brouhaha over Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and her pregnant teenage daughter Bristol, I think I have to agree with Lindsay Lohan. Yesterday, the actress wrote in her MySpace blog, that "we are taking the focus off of getting to know Sarah Palin and her political views" to instead discuss issues related to teen pregnancy. And, yes, there has been a slew of such stories, from this AP report on McCain's opposition to funding for teen pregnancy programs to this blogger from Reality Check who practically blames Bristol's pregnancy on abstinence-only education programs in schools.

If we're going to talk about reproductive health issues on the campaign trail, however, I'd rather see more discussion of how the candidates plan to implement their views on abortion—an issue largely being ignored by Barack Obama and John McCain, as my colleague Justin Ewers points out. Yet, Democratic and Republican party leaders haven't forgotten it—and both sides are guilty, in my opinion, of moving away from mainstream public opinion.

When the first human papilloma virus or HPV vaccine was approved two years ago to protect against the virus that causes cervical cancer, gynecologists hailed it as a major breakthrough. At my own annual checkup last week, my gynecologist told me that she's seeing significantly fewer abnormal Pap smears, probably because her patients have been getting vaccinated. Many women, though, are opting not to get themselves or their preteen daughters vaccinated after reports have been trickling out concerning possible side effects. A study out today, for example, shows that the Gardasil vaccine causes a higher rate of allergic reactions, such as nausea, rashes, and difficulty breathing, than do other vaccines given at younger ages. Though the overall risk is quite small—far less than 1 percent—doctors should still be on guard for these warning signs, the study researchers say, because they can become life threatening if not treated.